Did we get too excited too quickly?

Valve dropped three absolute bombs today. The Steam Frame standalone VR headset, that's gonna have to be a separate video. This one focusing on the new Steam Machine, and yes, the wait is finally over, the 2026 edition Steam Controller. Let's start with a little history. Over 10 years ago, Valve announced their first version of SteamOS,

a Linux-based operating system that would free gamers from the shackles of Microsoft Windows.

Oh no, it was a total commercial flop. a Linux-based operating system that would free gamers from the shackles of Microsoft Windows.

No, it was a total commercial flop.

Well, it wasn't ready yet. Yeah, it wasn't good enough and Steam wasn't big enough. So 2013, I showed this before, but like you've got to remember that like their total like activatable market, like if you look at how many people are using Steam for example, concurrent Steam users 2013 there were like this is December right, so it went up, there were 7 million users

now there are 41 million users so it's gone up, like what is that, fucking 6 times it is multiplied by 6 times the direct activatable market that they have. That's nuts.

Giving up on Steam Machines, Valve doubled down, working with game developers on Linux-native ports of their games, and with open-source developers on the Proton compatibility layer that makes their Steam Deck handheld out-of-the-box compatible with thousands of Steam games, even ones that only ever shipped on Windows. The Steam Deck is believed to have sold millions of units at this point, and no wonder, given its great balance of solid gaming and outstanding affordability. But its mobile form factor has given it... certain limitations and left gamers hungry for something more substantial.

And well, here it is. I'm calling it the lunchbox one because it's substantial lunchbox like lunch two because it's cube shaped like a box it's

a Gabe cube it's not a lunchbox it's a Gabe cube that's what it is and three

because I think this thing is going to eat Xbox's lunch okay that last one was

okay all right so now I see why he called it that um is it going to I think that Xbox doesn't have a lunch anymore I think that Xbox would rather be the cafeteria that's why they've decided to be a publisher they're no longer like focusing on hardware probably only to the extent that it will be a streaming device that's what they've decided to do

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Great, good one.

Oh shit, turn it down.

That's pretty cool. In what has become typical Valve fashion, they've been atypically open about the new Steam Machine, giving us direct access to the engineering folks who worked on these devices. The only thing I didn't have today was time,

so we're gonna get through this as fast as we can. At the heart of the Steam Machine is a six core AMD Zen 4 based CPU that turbos up to 4.8 GHz with 16 gigs of RAM and an 8 gig GPU that they compared to a 7600 XT-ish. But they were also quick to point out that it might not be apples to apples,

thanks to their custom software stack and power tuning. Basically the goal was that pretty much anything on Steam should run at 4k 60fps if you're willing to turn down the details and use a little bit of FSR upscaling. Okay, okay, so 4k 6 FPS And we saw that on display with cyberpunk running in the demo room at these settings Valve says to expect about six times the performance of the Steam Deck now I was a little surprised to not see an SoC with shared memory

But apparently the decision to go for discrete CPU and GPU came down to balancing cost, power, size, and performance. And also they just didn't feel like they needed to. And I guess Valve was right because they nailed this thing. Compared to a more traditional ITX small form factor machine, like the OG Steam Machine reference.

Wow, this is way smaller. Holy shit, you'd be able to take this with you.

Design, you can see that

It's a lot honestly. I think I get maybe they might not be able to do this for like Ventilation reasons or like you like airflow reasons But if you could make one that's like a thinner version of this that somebody could use kind of as like a small laptop Remember like those thin ps2s I think that you could sell another version of that for people that would want to have it as like a to laptop, remember like those thin PS2s? I think that you could sell another version of that for people that would want to have it

as like a to-go machine. Yeah, take it with you. Yeah, exactly right. You have a Steam Deck for that? Well, I don't know. I feel like a lot of people probably aren't gonna have both.

They'll probably have one or the other.

It's smaller. More on par with a highly integrated design like something like the framework desktop investment disclosure. Like the framework desktop, Valve allows customization of the front panel using these magnetic plates and they're gonna provide the CAD files so you can put whatever your heart desires on here. They even had a machine in the demo room with an E-Ink display that was showing system vitals. Pretty darn cool. But unlike that is really cool I like that. Framework has a programmable

RGB strip in the front that could be used to personalize your style or you can make a progress bar while you switch your TV input and wait for your game to be downloaded. The sky's kind of-

Oh, that's actually really clever, I like that.

Limit, the front of the device has a power button, micro SD slot, two USB three, five gigabit per second ports. Then the rest of the IO is in the back where you'll find two USB two type A ports, a USB C 10 gigabit per second port, no display port on there, that is worth noting.

What?

Okay.

Gigabit ethernet power in for the integrated power supply. Good gravy this thing is compact. As well as an HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.4 port. It is worth noting that HDMI 2.0 port, they have tested it at HDMI 2.1 speeds, but there are a couple of features that are not implemented so they can't call it HDMI 2.1.

Also at the back, we have a large 120mm cooling fan that draws air from both the intake on the bottom that comes up through the power supply as well as the

Large heat sink on the front. Holy shit Yeah, this is like this looks expertly engineered. Oh my god, and all this is a fucking computer

We're gonna practice this thing before we open in a sec. But first I want to talk about the Steam controller

Okay

No, no, not that Steam controller the new one with the exact same-

As I said, this looks like a fat Xbox controller.

Same name. Before you ask, yes, I made my case to Valve that this is unnecessarily confusing. No, they're not going to change it.

Oh, okay.

The good news is Valve learned a lot from the first Steam Controller, and this appears to be their most complete offering ever.

I think that the best controller is the PlayStation 5 controller. That's my opinion personally. My second best would be the GameCube, but that's really just because I like Smash Brothers. I really think PlayStation 5,

I think that they've basically, like they've locked it in. Xbox controller's the best. I've got both, right? I mean, I've got an Xbox controller right here, and I've got a... it's over there. But yeah, I've got... oh, no, I've got it right here. Yeah, I've got this one here. Like, I like PlayStation better, but I like... the Xbox One is good too.

But in my opinion opinion PlayStation is superior. To be fair, the original was really cool. I mean it made non-controller games finally playable from the couch thanks to their innovative haptic touchpad. They also unlocked novel input schemes with gesture control or like swiping with momentum. But that also turned off a lot of folks due to their deficiency of traditional joysticks. Well, that's solved now. The Steam Controller is everything that is great about the controller on the Steam Deck,

but usable when your Steam Deck is in docked mode or with your Steam machine, or with any other PC, investment disclosure. On the surface, it offers up a conventional ABXY button layout with a PlayStation-style symmetric joystick design that will work seamlessly out of the box with basically any game. The trackpads have been repositioned to better accommodate the arm's natural position while holding a smaller device.

Yeah, it's like basically you're either using the pad or the thumbsticks. I think that's pretty good. Can you use a non-Ste steam controller? That's a great question I actually don't know the answer to that

The wider steam deck and all of the usual valve buttons are included a steam button for opening the menu They're quick access button for bringing us overlay for rear programmable buttons The face buttons are satisfying with a nice amount of resistance and the d-pad has been tuned from the Steam Deck for better feel. It feels okay to me, but I only got a couple minutes with it before Valve blew my mind. The joysticks are next generation TMR or Tunneling Magneto Resistant joysticks, boasting superior accuracy and durability even compared to H Hall Effect joysticks.

And the controller has been designed from the ground up...

As a PC Andy, I see people pogging in chat, they're like, WHAT? WHAT? THAT'S CRAZY! I'm like... Wow, guys! Oh, man! That's super cool!

I don't know what the fuck any of that means. means up for a superior gyroscopic aiming or mousing experience with capacitive Thumb sticks and even capacitive grips so you can configure your gyro to enable or disable Depending on whether you put your thumb on the stick or even by simply loosening your grip No, how to recenter and then reactivate gyroscopic aiming They had a great demo with Bellatro showing how-

That's- that's how you- bro, like if you- if you're looking for a game that's gonna show how good a controller is, Bellatro That's what you need to use man. Like you gotta let him know. Like can you move those cards around or not? All right, I'll be right back. All, so, you got Bellatro on there. I've played Bellatro. I tried it out. I enjoy watching people play Bellatro more than I enjoy playing it.

That's the way I feel about it.

Can use the game's built-in controller compatibility, like a PLEB, or hear me out. Trackpads with the right for movement and the left one split down the middle for left and Right click or hear me out. Oh Gyro mouse using the face buttons for clicks. That's really cool I like that a lot and if you don't care about gyro aiming these capacitive inputs are all

Remappable as well opening up a whole world of possibilities Let's go even deeper. In addition to the haptic texture like feedback that you know and love from Valve's previous touchpads, the Steam Controller has been upgraded with large rumble motors for better immersion and a large battery that they claim should be good

for 35 hours in the most demanding applications and even better if you don't need quite as much rumble. But I haven't even talked about the best part. If you've ever gamed over Bluetooth, you know that it can be inconsistent at best valve solution the puck

Every steam controller comes with a wireless dongle that clips magnetically to the steam controller using a couple of nice strong alignment magnets And it uses a proprietary 2.4 gigahertz wireless interface that valve claims is good for about eight milliseconds end-to-end Latency and offers up superior resiliency when you're using multiple controllers It allows four controllers per puck So that's not as good as the Xbox dongle which can do eight But valve has tested up to four pucks on a single system for a maximum of 16 players

Meaning that you're probably gonna run out of seats on a single system for a maximum of 16 players,

meaning that you're probably gonna run out of seats

on your couch before you run out of controller compatibility.

Holy shit. Last, chef kiss on top. Four is enough, but yeah. That's cozied up beside the power LED

to help you find your controller when you're in VR.

I love it.

Now let's get back to the steam machine who got naked while we were busy.

Oh, shoot.

Wow, Valve's goal was to build something that is zero hassle.

It's basically just all the stuff with a really big fan next to it. Yeah, there you go.

Grabbing game for the non-tinkerers. Oh man. They really are laser focused on a console-like experience. Pretty much, yeah. With quick suspend and resume and modern standby so that your games are already updated when you sit down to play.

They also fully acknowledge that there are folks out there, guilty, who are tinkerers and they've come up with an ingenious design for this thing that allows it to cater to both audiences.

Wait, you can change? No way.

Advance, no. You're not gonna be swapping out the BGA-

I was about to say.

...sorted processors.

Okay.

But what you can do is upgrade the storage with next to no hassle to a 2230 or larger 2280 sized M.2 drive. And...

Isn't it crazy how Steam can just achieve a monopoly by just simply making good products? I thought that was supposed to be like illegal or something, right? I mean, like, so you're telling me that you could just make products that the customer wants

and then everybody just buys them? Well, like you can't just memory uses standard SODIMM slots. five to my community. While we couldn't go that deep today, Valve also confirmed that the memory

uses standard SODIMM slots.

Oh, wow. I did not expect that.

Finally, while Valve hasn't actually told iFixit that this product is coming yet, they did say that they're hoping to continue their partnership that they've had on the Steam Deck, making replacement parts available for end users.

I hate to say this but like with the amount of things that are upgradeable on this It does make me worried that it's gonna be cheaper than what my what my guess was I might have to buy five of these but hey if I'm wrong, that means they're gonna be cheaper, right? And so yeah, and Awesome since we're in here, by the way There are some really cool details that I'd love to highlight 600 The power supply for one thing is fully integrated to the point where it's actually part of the chassis

and the cooling solution pulls air directly through it which avoids any need for it to have its own fan.

Oh, wait, wait, let me listen to that again.

Is fully integrated to the point where it's actually part of the chassis and the cooling solution pulls air directly through it which avoids any need for it to have its own fan. The aforementioned Delta cooling fan is actually slightly thicker.

Like, that's, to me, that's the most impressive thing about this. Is the fact that it's so compact, and the fact that it can cool itself is like, this is coming from somebody who's like, I used to have a box fan duct taped to the side of my computer, okay? Like that to me is the most incredible thing about it. It's insanely compact. Yeah, bro, this is nuts.

Than the standard 25 millimeter for extra static pressure. And it includes antenna mounts that are integrated into it along with IO mounts.

Cool, right?

Yeah.

Oh, this is actually a great look at the four antennas. So this is the back of the device where you have your two antennas for Wi-Fi 6E. Then if we flip it around to the front, we've got one antenna for Bluetooth peripherals and another one that is dedicated

to your Steam controller or controllers. So that puck that's included with your controller is actually extra and you could chuck it on another PC or next to your couch for charging a major question mark Jesus

Though is of course price now, that's where we got to talk That is the important thing Price is the I think the that is the big question everybody has about this How much is it going to be I I think that it's gonna be $1,100. $1,100 plus to minus $100 on release. If delusional, I give out five steam... five SteamCubes or GabeCubes. That's how certain I am. I think that's what the price is gonna be.

I wasn't able to give any specific numbers to rapidly evolving market conditions, but they will obviously have it nailed down when the Steam Machine launches in Q1 2026 alongside the new Steam Controller. They did give me one hint though. They said that while they expect it to be very competitively priced with a PC, that it will be priced like a PC rather than like yeah but like like a PC can mean a lot of things so and hey hey hey I said I said didn't I say I do I do not think this is this this machine is clearly above the capacity and the quality of a PlayStation or an Xbox it is is. It's above that.

Like a console with games subsidizing the upfront hardware purchase.

Exactly.

They wouldn't say

That's another good point too, is that yeah, that these these developers, the consoles are loss leaders for the games. It's a good point.

Why? But if I had to guess, I'd say it's partially to avoid stepping on the margin opportunities of their potential partners for Steam games and Steam software, but also because they recognize that the Steam machine is a full-fledged PC capable of being used as a full-fledged PC. There's no guarantee then that, say, a corporate purchase of 10,000 of these things would result in a...

It's better to probably anchor at a higher baseline price, and then that way you future-proof longer for inflation. Like, I think that maybe that's a better idea. Like, I don't know. I'm sure they had a million people that know a lot more about it than I do make this decision.

But I wouldn't be surprised if it was priced more, because really, I don't think that people will buy this instead of buying a console. I think that people that buy this will buy this instead of buying a PC. That's what I'm assuming. It'll be like 2000.

You think it'll be 2000? I don't think it's going to be 2000. Like this, so this is not competitive with like a gaming PC. Like if you are an enthusiast where it's a gaming PC, bro, what? Or for a second room? $800 a month? Yeah, exactly. Right. I think so. And no, no, no, no. What I'm saying is that people will get it for like,

maybe something else separate, but I don't think that it's going to necessarily replace a computer entirely. But I could see if something like this is very successful, I could see more people transitioning to something like this. And this is especially true in other countries too. Like I think so.

I'm hoping this is going to be a base standard for game development. Yeah, I mean, me too, right? Especially like, I mean, yeah, I think so too. It's a Nuckbox, the performance is around mid-grade laptop. Yeah, exactly. it to it's a nutbox the performance is around mid-grade laptop yeah exactly like I'm not expecting this to be like something crazy where it's like the same quality as like a 5090 I would say that the quality for this probably would be like a 3080 level right

like if I had to guess like I think you're probably gonna get that level of graphics out of it I'm just and by the way I just totally guessing, but like if I had to guess that's what it would be.

So they really do need to protect the sustainability of their hardware business. Another major question mark is where the heck is standalone SteamOS for custom PC builders?

It's just not ready. I don't think they have it ready yet, right?

We aren't going to get a formal SteamOS release for BYO hardware configurations anytime soon, but Valve has expanded the list of supported third-party devices and they have supported-

I think that really, like, I mean, Valve is extremely measured in the way that they release products. Whenever they release a product, it is like the product, but it will never get released until it is completely locked in to being exactly what they want it to be. I think there's like a few other companies that do basically that same thing,

but in a general sense, that's the reason why. It's kind of like Valve, like Rockstar is like this with video games too, right? Where it's like, you know, Red Dead Redemption comes out, it's generational, but you know, it doesn't come out every year, right? I mean like Grand Theft Auto would probably be like that too. And so like yeah, it will take a lot of time, but when it comes out it will be very good.

Nintendo as well? Sometimes. Nintendo except with Pokemon. Installing the Steam Deck recovery image on AMD CPU and GPU systems for some time and recently updated it to support their latest Zen 5 and RDNA 4 architecture processors. So, nothing prevents you from building your own Steam Machine and installing the software for free. Sure. Though you will miss out on some things. HDMI CEC control, for instance,

required Valve to build a custom motherboard in order to have your computer turn on alongside your AV.

I'm so glad that like, cause this is something that I always wanted to do like with Star Forge is to make a, I was going to call it a big black box and have it be a thousand dollar PC right that you can sell and Steam obviously that has infinitely more resources than I do has been able to engineer a little black box and I think

it'll probably be somewhere around there. Gabe stole your idea it's a great idea I feel like how many of you guys that you know, maybe you're a little bit entrepreneurial You know, you're you know a little enterprising you thought man. Why don't they make a PC? That's just like a baseline PC with no frills. No bullshit and just sell it for $1,000 Because like I remember growing up I would always wonder that like why they have all these bullshit things Why not just have like one like like conformity, you know, conform

thing, right? A lot of you guys have thought about this, right? Like, this is not like a unique, crazy idea. I feel like a lot of people that are like PC enthusiasts and fans of this stuff have thought about this for a long time. It's annoying that it's Linux. Yeah, I don't know a lot about Linux personally. It was really working on the business plan? Yeah. I mean, it just wasn't, it wasn't ready, right?

Receiver and to get that on a BYO PC would require some serious cooperation between hardware makers that, uh, I don't know. It's in transit, but the bulk of the experience should work pretty much out of the box. We may even get a release that supports a broader range of hardware in the future, but the vibe I'm picking up on around here is that it really

depends on better support for Intel and especially Nvidia GPUs.

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AMD or Intel? I Can show you what my computer I tried to get through everything But I only had about four hours to get briefed on everything right and film so my apologies now Assuming that that one's up yet. Go check out the video on the Steam frame VR headset because it's a game changer It's a big deal. Please make it clear That this is not a real product. Sorry. Oh

So you can see through it. I get it. It makes sense. Yeah. Let me go back. I'll look and see, can I find that real quick at the very end?

Oh yeah. Yeah.

That's like the see-through version of it. What a surprise. Link that. What a great video, by the way. This is like, it know like I've thought about trying it, but I've never really, like there's never been a situation where I thought to

myself Windows can't do this but I want to do this. So I don't really know why I would use Linux because I feel like Windows has always basically just filled my needs. Like there's no need for it. Yeah, but I think if you're like an enthusiast, you're into, you know, maybe doing something unique with what your PC is, then maybe I would do it myself. I'll show I can show you what my what my PC is, right? Let me let me just go ahead and open it up. Yeah, there's my PC. And yeah, we got it right here. And operating system, BIOS processor, AMD Ryzen processor memory, obviously a lot of memory. And of course have a 5090 as no surprise, of

course, of course, of course, of course, I have a 5090. Right. And so yep, there you go, guys. Small maximize that shit. Yeah, there it is. Same CPU as me. Yeah, best CPU and GPU. Yeah, I've got a good one. Yeah, um... That's the perks. I mean, I do stream. It's like my job. Couldn't afford the RAM, huh? I don't know.

That's the perks. I mean, I do stream. It's like my job. Couldn't afford the RAM, huh? I don't know. But uh, yeah, that's where I'm at.